


Untangle Too Easy

by orphan_account



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-12
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-03-01 03:04:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2757173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benedikt forgets Sebastian over time. Sebastian doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Untangle Too Easy

**Author's Note:**

> I experimented a little with this style-wise. Sebastian is my guinea pig. (I love him really.)

Sometimes I have these dreams where I'm talking to you and you don't say anything in return. Sometimes I'm with you and we don't speak at all. Other times I can't speak and you just look at me with such sorrow and pity that I choke up. The worst, though, are the dreams in which I tell you everything, staring at my own feet, and when I look up, look you in the eye for the first time in forever, you look back at me, completely emotionless. You don't recognise me.

(I wake up after those dreams, panting and sweating, Tatjana undisturbed by my side. Her hair and skin are fairer than yours under my fingers. I am a lucky man but--)

 

 

Sometimes I think about a life in which I never meet you. I turn out to be no good at football but you still do. I never play for Schalke and you still become their captain. In fact, I never leave Poland, live the life of Sebastian Pniowski and never mean a thing to you. I will know you by the name on the back of your shirt, watch you on a handful of occasions and nothing more.

(I'd still love you.)

Or maybe I'd be the footballer, play for Schalke and stay for a long, long time. You'd still bleed blue and adore me for the legend I become. More likely, I would fail, move on, deal with it. You'd hate me and call me useless from the stands and _thisisreallifethisisreallife._

Sometimes I think about a life in which I never meet you and pretend that it could be worse than it is right now. It could never be, of that I have always been certain.

 

 

I always wondered how you felt when I left. I always wondered if you ever cared at all. Meeting up with Germany, with you, feeling the gentle warmth of your smile and hug, it always gave me hope.

And then we won, don't you remember? Together, we won and I don't recall you ever being so happy. Sweden was so pretty that night when you kissed me and I kissed you back. I'll never forget the look on Mesut's face or the awkward conversation that followed on our way home from Munich to Bremen.

On the way back to Germany the skin of your cheeks burned red as you blamed yourself for what you (we) did, which wasn't entirely justifiable, but as long as it was anyone but me. You always did love the idea of being a martyr, but you'd never admit to it. I know you better than you think I do.

 

 

When Tatjana gets angry at me she tells me (usually before rather than after she threatens to go back to Austria) that the only thing I'm better at than fucking up is feeling sorry for myself. I'm a selfish bastard but we can't all be as perfect as you, Benedikt, can we? Not a mere mortal like myself.

I tried that for a while. I tried to hate you but I couldn't. I failed and I'm sorry but it's all your fault, really. If only you'd tell me that you hate me in return and all of this would be over. I could be a free man and love my wife without this disgusting inner shame that torments me.

(But I do not hate you, it is not your fault and my shortcomings are my own. Nothing is ever your fault.)

 

 

You win again, but it's the World Cup this time. I'm not there because we're not even from the same country, after all. You will say, in that moment, Brazil is prettier than Sweden and I will call you a liar. Only we no longer speak and I haven't said a proper word to you in years. I haven't bothered trying is the honest truth but I've never been very good at that either. (You should make a list: Reasons Not to Love Sebastian Boenisch and list everything that's wrong with me. You'll probably run out of ink. I'd send you a new pen if I knew where you lived.)

 

 

I have one of those dreams and end up in the kitchen, sitting at the table with my head in my hands. This time I called your name in the tunnel and you didn't turn around, didn't acknowledge me. (Who could blame you?) If I wake up calling your name, Tatjana doesn't hear me. She knows, I'm sure, which would embarrass you terribly, but she never mentions it. At least, she chooses not to, probably pretending that it isn't real to help her sleep at night. I wish I could sleep at night.

"You should've really grown out of this silly crush years ago," Tatjana says, out of the blue and into my head. She stands in her nightgown by the door, as stunning as always. "It's not healthy, Sebastian, you're twenty-seven years old," she says. "It's not fair on me."

She's a bit like you in a number of ways, you know? Too good for me is just one of those things. Once she told me about the time you invited her and Ivan over for dinner and you got on well.

"I love you," I offer because what else can I say? She goes back to bed with a sigh and maybe one day she will wake up in the morning and realise that she's better than this. Because she is. Still, I can't blame you for that.

 

 

When I knew that I was leaving, that there wasn't a place for me at Schalke anymore, there was so much I wanted to say and so little that I actually did. There's probably still some obsolete words clinging to my lungs like tar, festering in my chest somewhere, but I've forgotten them now, just like you've forgotten me.

I can deal with a lot, you know, but I can't deal with being and meaning nothing to you. But I'll have to, won't I? That's the way this game works. The winner takes everything and that has and never will be me.

(You were such a great opponent but time's up, my friend.)

 

 

Sometimes I dream of you. Just you and me, and the hairs on my arm stand up as you laugh at a joke that was never supposed to be funny. It's not forever, you and I, but it's blissful in that moment and worth thirty pieces of silver.

I really must start going to church.


End file.
